'Popular Photography' magazine and PopPhoto.com to close after nearly 80 years

The first issue of Popular Photography from May 1937. Yes, that is a woman getting out of the shower on the cover.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was president of the United States of American when the first issue of Popular Photography Magazine hit newsstands in May of 1937. Now, nearly 80 years later, one of the world's most widely circulated photography print publications is closing.

The upcoming March/April issue will be the last, and as of Friday, March 10th, no new content will be published on PopPhoto.com. This news comes after the publication switched to a bi-monthly print schedule about six months ago.

Pop Photo's sister publication, American Photo Magazine, had been Web-only for the past couple of years; it will also stop updating its website as of this coming Friday.

Eric Zinczenko, the CEO of Bonnier, parent company of both titles, made the announcement earlier today via a company-wide email.

This news hits especially close to home, as I had the distinct privilege of starting my career as an intern, and later an assistant and associate editor at Popular Photography and American Photo magazines. And I know first hand how dedicated and passionate the staff of these titles is. After all, they're what made me first fall in love with this industry. So go get yourself a nice hoppy beer (PP tech editor Phil Ryan's favorite) and take a long deep gulp, because the photography world just got dimmer by a stop.

Not much of a loss. They had some sort of 'trusted' advertiser logo for many of their advertisements. That meant that they trusted the advertiser would help you out if you had an issue with that advertiser. There were many bait-and-switch advertisers that carried that logo on their PP ads. I decided to buy something from a 'trusted' advertiser and got the bait-and-switch treatment. So, I reached out to see what PP could do about it. They did absolutely NOTHING to help me out. In my opinion, they were complicit with their advertisers by letting them use the phony logo.

I used to read both Modern and Popular Photography. In my view losing Modern Photography was the beginning of the end. The better magazine was being taking over by its inferior rival. For me the end of Popular was when Herbert Kepplar died. The last vestige of quality. Luckily for me it was also the last month of my subscription.

Pop Photo has been going downhill for some time under its new editor. Like its competitors it gradually changed from a photography magazine to an equipment magazine. Sad, sad deterioration. I remember when it panned Frank's book, "The Americans." I didn't agree, but at least the magazine was talking about photography instead of cameras.

Sad, sad news. Popular Photography is/was a great magazine. I've been reading it for decades, since I was a kid. Subscribed for years looking forward for the next issue. Great photos and written content for general photography for people of all levels. Lots of good people, photographers, editors, contributors thorough the years (of course, many of us continue to remember Herb Keppler).

I'm subscribed to Shutterbug and Outdoor Photographer plus PDN (Photo District News) which is focused more towards the practicing pro and serious enthusiasts. But POP was my first photo mag, I learned a lot from it and will miss it a lot.

It's sad that a magazine of this magnitude is shutting down. I'm sure there are things that they could have done to keep the magazine going... I mean, there is always going to be new advances in photo technology. And if it's because they ran out of things to write about, they could have started writing more "how to" articles, which is one thing I never really saw in the magazine, in the 1 year I subscribed to it. And there is always room for gear reviews, like they did in the magazine, so I wonder if it came down to cost, or if advertisers started jumping ship for other publications to put their advertisements in. AT the very least, I hope that maybe someone will buy the popphoto.com domain and continue publishing with it (probably won't happen).

I bet Eric Zinczenko, the CEO is crying all the way to the bank, May Eric & other upper bosses & the Board of Directors, who were involved in making this decision all suffer harshly soon. I have been doing photography for over 30 years & Popular Photography had what photographers needed especially when looking for new equipment to buy.Everyone who was involved with both Popular Photography & PopPhoto.com I wish the best of luck to all the staff because they did a great job for many years!

It's very sad as I used to read Modern and Popular Photography every month for years. But when Modern went away, I stopped buying both. Popular Photography was really not at the same level but I wonder why they couldn't make the change to a web based and digital magazine? I subscribe to many digital magazines the cost at least the same at the printed versions. It seems like they just gave up instead of transitioning over like so many other magazines did. It's important for good editors to be present on the web. People are saying all the info is available online but there is so much crap online you have to be very careful who you listen to. Hopefully other photo magazines with quality editorial content will make the switch to web and digital subscriptions.

Michel -- I have about 6 subscriptions on my iPad and love reading them. Get on a plane and have so much to read at my fingertips. I have no issue on the iPad. I have read dozens of books on it also. Nice to be saving all that paper too.

In the not-too-distant past it was PC Magazine/Byte/PC World, and now Pop Photo. I used to be a Pop Photo subscriber for 3 years at an incredible price, but once I discovered all the online resources available on the internet I never go back to print magazines for their "at-least-1-month-old" latest news.

80 years is a good run. Hard to compete with the internet. The world continues to spin and maybe will do so with a few more trees. At the moment I'm relaxed here with iPhone in hand and digital photo paper mag patiently waiting to be picked up and leafed through. Really for many of us there is still nothing like holding a magazine in our hands and turning those paper pages.

If they raised the cost of the subscription, I wouldn't have thought twice about paying an increase. It was one of the lowest cost subscriptions that I get, and easily one of the best values. It's sad to see them go, and their crew unemployed!

In my younger days I used to look forward to the beginning to every month to check out the latest copy of Pop Photo. Then, with the advent of online content, the magazine began to feel dated. I felt that their equipment reviews were not as sophisticated as sites such as DPreview or Imaging Resource, and even the published photos were somewhat uninspiring. In fact I enjoyed looking at this site's challenges more than Pop Photo's pics. As for technique, there's a wealth of excellent content on YouTube. Having said all that, I'm still sad to see the magazine's demise. I hope this is not a harbinger that non-selfie photography is dying as a hobby and an art.

Wow, with the resurgence of film photography and the explosion of digital photography, this is the last thing I thought would happen to a great online and print magazine! Who can forget Modern Photography and Keppler (before they were merged with Popular Photography- a former rival) They launched and supported my passion for photography, which at one time was professional. Exposed us to great photographers like Adams, the Westons, Baer, Gowland, Kenna, etc., and great equipment over the years. They also introduced me to B&H and Adorama a long time ago. Their tests helped me find the best lenses, cameras, and films! Popular helped me find the best digital cameras and lenses. Agree with others, there is nothing like a printed magazine to take on an outing or trip - a welcome break from looking at laptop and phone screen. That said, i hope they put all their magazines on disk like National Geographic...

I read Pop Photo as a youth when I was given a Kodak plastic camera for my tenth birthday. As a teenager I scrimped and saved birthday money, odd job money to buy a coveted Asahi Pentax slr with the 50mm lens. Pop Photo and my dad's playboys were great magazines. I will always remember the 20 pages of ads from New York city camera dealers where you could see the cameras and lenses you desired only to find out that the deals in the backs of magazines didn't exist and you were never going to get your equipment at those advertised prices. There is nothing like a real paper magazine.

Popular Photography introduced basic photography skills to an extraordinary number of people over the decades. It was technically excellent, but not designed for the working professional, as the title implies. Without this magazine, it would have taken me a lot longer to understand the basics. After mastering those fundamentals, I moved on to more sophisticated journals. One thing that pushed me away in about 2001 was the insistence that a 8x10 photo could was the size limit for 3 MP photo, yet my 'darkroom' guy and I were able to get 16x20 of the technology of the time.Still, sorry to see it go, they had a great run!

What a moronic reply. So you obviously bath in money morning, noon and night. When you buy something on Amazon and it is not to your liking don't you ask for a refund? I'm sure you do. Well if I buy a product and am not happy with it I get a refund. I guess the fact I still have almost a year left of subscription to a now defunct magazine constitutes unhappy about product.

Almost a year left? When I checked the subscription price it was $14 for a year. So you're out by what, $12? Clearly you would be hounding the poor kid's parents for a refund of your lawn-mowing money. If I bought something on Amazon for $12, or $20, or $30, which I didn't like, but the company went out of business, I certainly wouldn't whine to all and sundry about not getting my refund. Not because I bathe in money, which would be pretty stupid, considering how dirty most money is, but because I'm at least a reasonably decent human being.

So Lou, you are a little bit late to the table to be slinging crap on an old post. I know they went out of business. I also got a free subscription to one of their other magazines as an aopology. So you are "A day late and a dollar short" I believe is the term. Kind of like your IQ.

Caught in the intersection between the decline of the camera market and the decline of publishing... since they were more gear focused on gear there is little place for them in a world where photography is going more and more to cell phones, or higher end specialized pro gear.

I am sorry to see the passing of Pop Photo. Having read the magazine for over 25 years, Herb Keppler and Debbie Grossman and the "how to " series have helped to improve my photography and with new insights and ideas. RIP, PopPhoto.

Modern and Petersen's were technically good reads with subject matter sophisticated enough to meet the demands of a pt time photo journalist. Always some content or side by side tests worth reading.

Pop Photo was typically the worst of the mags with pulp content and little content to impress anything other than amatuer shooters. I recall having a very serious snail mail debate with Pop Photo's editor in the late 90's after they continuously advocated the use of amatuer (grocery store) class print films for shooting weddings on the basis of 'color saturation'. This drove my lab manager nutz as we tried to get casual shooters to use more professional materials, which delivered obvious and tangible results even with novice cameras. No brain - no headache.

With respect, the name is "Popular Photography," not "Pro-Photo." I can't think of a reason to be snobbish about Popular Photography. It introduced millions to the basics and helped confused beginners to think about composition and gear.

For those with an active subscription, I contacted Bonnier Corp. to see what they were going to do. I was told they would transfer my subscription to Popular Science -- or I could request a refund. Refund is on the way. Sad to see Popular Photograph fold... Popular Science? Not even close to a comparable mag.

I remember PopPhoto claimed as The world's largest imaging magazine, now it's sad to see Popular Photography closed. Bought a few issues of Popular Photography from 85-95, still have them besides American Photo, Petersen's Photographic, Outdoor Photographers, Photo Asia & Foto Media. Time to throw them all into a trash bin.

PS. My favorite contributor is Herbert Keppler (Vice President & Director of Publishing), he usually writes several articles in one edition.

(1.) Sorry, Ray. Probably you should be using "the past tense" when describing anything about Bert Keppler now. I believe that he died a few years back. I think your "is" should be "was," and your "writes" should be "wrote."

(2.) Boy. US CAMERA, 35mm PHOTOGRAPHY, MODERN PHOTOGRAPHY,, and now POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY. It is beginning to look like paper printed publications in general are dying, and not just newspapers. Well, there are a lot of things in this world that seem to have changed. I will admit that I did not expect to see the 525 line raster NTSC television format to last only 75 years. Nor Kodachrome to die either. I still have a few boxes of KX-135. I remember taking my first 35mm color slides with Kodachrome ASA 12. Wish I still had them.

I quit buying photo magazines long ago. Except for the wonderful LENSWORK publication. Sadly, the Internet and the digital age is slowly bringing about the demise of the printed page. Have you notice how much smaller Outdoor Photographer has become?

Yes I have notice that Outdoor Photographer is about have the size it use to be but the price remained the same. I have to agree that the internet and e-books will be the demise of the printed world. From a financial point of view e-books are a lot less costly to produce so it is the wave of the future. Another thing in my opinion is that Outdoor Photography Magazine publishes great picture and high tech articles but it may be a little unrealistic for the majority of their audience. Photography has become a multi-billion dollar industry and I would venture to bet that the majority of the camera buyers are not professionals but vacationers or family users. It is so easy to search the internet and YouTube gives people lots of training videos. I fear it is hard for magazines to compete with this type of information availability. I am not sure if there is an answer for all this but I believe magazines are a dying media source.

I used to read Modern Photography a lot in the early 80s. I loved the camera reviews, the catalog in the back, and "Keppler's SLR Notebook." He did an article where he advocated going through your slides and throwing away those out-of-focus shots as part of culling your collection but also as part of striving for excellence and not settling for mediocrity. I use that idea a lot when my wife gets mad if I delete a photo of our kids which is blurry (doesn't happen with me me but it happens to her ALL the time).

I agree with your wife - a blurry photo is much better than no photo at allI have a few photos taken during the war while we were running from the advancing enemy. The prints are B&W, blurry and very small - taken with a half frame. Yes remove those fail images provided that you have something similar in their places.

Allow me to add a positive comment. Thanks Pop Photo. Everything I learned about B&W photography in the 70's came from Bob Schwalberg and Bill Pierce. Because Pierce was an experienced photojournalist, he showed how to create great shots on the run.

I agree with you. Back in the 80's and 90's, I used to subscribe to a couple of British magazines. They were very instructive with a variety of features. Unfortunately, the American magazines were filled with advertisements. In fact, half of an American magazine would only contain advertisements, not to mention some 4-5 postal reply cards falling out of it.

Always thought Modern was a much better and more informative product, though some Modern staff moved over when that mag was closed in 1989. Pop was, well, too POP (for me)! And many of the recent staff seem underwhelming.

I must admit ever since I discovered Dpreview I stopped buying photographic magazines, only when some special editions that caught my eyes. My local Library stock latest copies of the Pop magazine so I always make sure I have a good read - I shall miss it

I wish to thank the magazine generations of people behind it for the last 80 years including the advertisers. You are the back bone of the photographic industry - keep the light going while we are forced to go through so many changes.

Photography has changed a lot since digital, same for many other media forms, the camera industry has been declining for several years and i'm sure more magazines will vanish as result of that, internet is the way people use to read information about anything related to photography or fields of interest.

Sad news; I use to subscribe to this magazine a long while back, but, like most printed periodicals, cyberspace became their demise. Just way too much information can be acquired online making such rags and mags obsolete. Unfortunate but true. :)

Some memories...Herbert Kepler's opinion could make or break a new camera or lens, the view camera editor said to just buy whatever lens was newest, reading the tiny price listings in the back of the magazine, the editors defending the use of professional images in an amateur magazine, watching the emergence of Olympus SLRs and Vivitar Series One lenses.

Guess I'm a lot older than you. During his days writing "Keppler on the SLR" for Modern, his kit was 2 Nikormats, 18mm Spiratone, 28, 50, and 105mm Nikkors, plus a 500 mm Spiratone mirror lens. (Does anybody even recognize those names?). My second Nikon lens purchase was the 105mm based on that.

I had that 500 mm Spiratone catadioptric lens in a Pentax mount. In fact, I think I still have it somewhere. A Spiratone slide copier too. Loved Pop Photo, Modern Photo and Peterson's. And the Freestyle ads -- "34 Years in Pop Photo."

Photography is dead. I'm surprised these magazines have survived for so long or that some are still hanging in there at all. There will not one left in a matter of a few short years. Not one. And this, along with no more compact cameras of any kind, no more video camcorders whatsoever, and eventually no more consumer dslrs or cameras of any shape or form. Nothing. The only "photographic machines" that will survive will be very high end specialized optical products and top end very purposes oriented professional cameras. Everything else will be just phones. That's it. As soon as proper pixel density is a bit higher & there are actual working zoom lenses inside smartphones (not dual lens gimmicks or digital zooms crap), it will be the final nail in the coffin of photography as it's still known today. There will be as many people owning an extra camera in addition to their cell phones in a few years from now, as there are people today still using VHS or Betamax to tape TV shows.

Photography is far from dead. There are more still images being captured today than ever before.

You argue that cameras are dying, and I don't completely agree with you there, either - the cameras in phones are made inexpensively, and there will continue to be the desire to capture more than a phone can. The compact / point-n-shoot range will disappear, sure, but the enthusiast ranges will continue.

However, even if standalone cameras vanished completely, photography would continue - or do you imagine every still image being replaced by a video clip?

Maybe you didn't understand my meaning. Sure, more pictures AND video will be taken more than ever as is already the case today. But will be cell phones taking pictures and shooting video, not dedicated cameras or camcorders.

Does it matter if more, or fewer photos are being taken? I suspect it is more a question of whether more, or fewer, are being printed or otherwise utilized. I may have thousands of photos stored on a hard drive, but they are useless/worthless/irrelevant if I don't actually do something with them.

Gee, you speak so authoritatively that I've just thrown my Canon DSLR, L-series lenses, new Sony RX10, and 4 others in the trash. A shame, because I used at least one of them every day, and had great plans for the future. I don't own a smart phone, but I'll rush right out and get one. I'm sure it will be great for wildlife photography and the videos I spend 40 hours on average editing. Thanks for the revelation - an amateur photographer.

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